As the national news media continues to unearth more details about the lenient sentencing of convicted Stanford rapist Brock Turner including evidence today that he lied about his earlier use of drugs and alcohol, pre-college more high-profile open letters are arriving, one of which was written by Vice President Joe Biden to the unnamed assault victim.
Via BuzzFeed we get the full letter, in which Biden writes, "I do not know your name but your words are forever seared on my soul. Words that should be required reading for men and women of all ages." He also calls her "a warrior with a solid steel spine," and says "We all have a responsibility to stop the scourge of violence against women once and for all."
Meanwhile, the National Organization for Women has published an open letter to Judge Aaron Persky, joining the broad-ranging calls for his removal from office, and encouraging more people to sign the widely-supported Change.org petition and join the Super PAC-led effort to oust the jurist.
In response to Persky's comments in sentencing Turner to just six months in prison, of which it appears he will only serve three, NOW president Terry O'Neill writes, "You clearly put more value on the life and 'potential' of the young man who is a convicted rapist, then on the life and potential of the young woman who courageously stood trial in the hope of winning justice for the violence she endured."
Even potential Santa Clara jurors are turning their backs on Persky. According to CBS 5, 20 jurors refused to serve in Judge Aaron Persky’s courtroom on an unrelated misdemeanor case Wednesday, "citing the judge as a hardship."
Speaking of those four months the rapist most recently convicted in Persky's court will face, Turner will reportedly not be spending them with the general population of Santa Clara County Jail. Instead, reports TMZ, he will be "held in an area away from the general inmate population, and will have a deputy escort whenever he moves around the grounds."
In somewhat more sensational news (sensational depending on whether you believe in witchcraft), an online gathering of hundreds of witches Tuesday night came together via a now-deleted Facebook event to hex Turner. According to Broadly, the group represented people from all over the US and around the globe who believe that Turner's six-month sentence for three felonies relating to the sexual assault of an unconscious woman let the 20-year-old former Stanford student off light.
Melanie Elizabeth Hexen told the publication that she and her local coven of 13 women felt "outraged and helpless" about the ordeal. "We all felt so much injustice and anger and sadness and the need to connect on a psychological level with other people who felt the same and could do something about it," she said.
